


A Merry Little Christmas

by never_love_a_wild_thing



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Christmas Fluff, M/M, The pack is a family, just cute boys doing christmas things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-09-28 10:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17181416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/never_love_a_wild_thing/pseuds/never_love_a_wild_thing
Summary: Liam has been stuck with all of the Christmas-related chores for the pack this year and weirdly enough, Theo seems determined to help. The two have always been reluctant allies, but with forces that are possibly even closer than they imagined pushing them together, the spirit of Christmas might just be strong enough to change that.





	1. December First

**Author's Note:**

  * For [osirismind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/osirismind/gifts).



> Merry Christmas! This fic will be in 12 parts, hopefully updated every day to every other day until it is finished. For Francis for the 2018 Thiam Secret Santa. (Francis, I'm really hoping I can write all of your prompts at some point - I love them all! -but I figured I'd start with this one! I hope you like it!)
> 
> Enjoy <3

“Why?” Liam complained.

“Why?” Stiles’s eyebrows shot up, “Because you’re home from college and you have nothing better to do.”

“What about Mason? Or Corey?” he pointed out, “Why can’t they do it?”

“Liam, it will be fun,” Scott told him soothingly, “Look, why don’t you take Theo with you?”

“Yeah, that way both of you will be distracted,” Stiles added, immediately resulting in his being elbowed in the ribs by Scott. “I mean, that way you’ll get everything done faster and can enjoy the holiday cheer.”

Liam groaned, but Scott clapped him on the shoulder with a sympathetic smile as he followed Stiles out the door. “I’ll text you a list, but you can start with the tree.”

Liam fell back onto the huge sectional that took up most of the living room in the house that Scott, Stiles, Lydia, and Malia had rented that had come to be known as the pack house, since everyone was in and out of it often enough that they practically all lived there anyways. The thermometer in the window outside was hovering around thirty degrees, and the clouds outside were a light grey, threatening a snow that had yet to fall this winter.

It was the first day of December, Liam had just gotten home from school the day before, and already the pack was pawning off the most useless, time-consuming job on him just to keep him out of their hair. He should be more indignant, but to tell the truth, he was a little unsurprised, especially when Theo came downstairs not five minutes later, hair slightly tossled, like he had just been taking a nap, sweater looking weirdly warm and soft in contrast to his sharp features.

“Scott said you need my help with something,” he told Liam in a scratchy voice that confirmed Liam’s suspicions that he had previously been asleep, but stirred Liam’s full attention.

“Apparently,” Liam told him over the back of the couch, “I’m in charge of everything Christmas this year. Even though Mason and Corey have nothing to do during break either.”

“Corey failed his finals in two classes,” Theo said, sounding bored and he leaned his hands against the back of the sofa far enough away that Liam didn’t have to crane his neck to look at him. “His professors are letting him make it up with two essays each, so Mason and Lydia are helping him, but it has to be in by Christmas. It’s nothing personal…mostly.”

Liam gaped at him. “What? Why didn’t they tell me? Wait, how do _you_ know?”

Theo shrugged with a small smirk. “I guess he’s embarrassed. And I just like knowing things.”

Liam opened his mouth to argue that he only liked to know things about people so that he could use the information against them, but Theo tilted his head, grey-green eyes gazing out the window. “Looks like it’s going to snow. Let’s go, Dunbar, I don’t want to have to trek through the snow looking for a damn tree.”

Theo pushed away from the couch and started towards the front hall like he was actually about to go out and get a Christmas tree. Theo Raeken. Buying a Christmas tree. _This_ , Liam had to see. He launched himself off of the couch and followed swiftly at Theo’s heels.

“Wait,” he demanded as Theo pulled a heavy coat out of the closet from its place between Lydia’s Burberry coat and one of Derek’s thicker leather jackets, “You’re seriously going to go get a Christmas tree? Right now?”

“No,” Theo said, yanking his coat on, “I’m going _with_ _you_ to get a Christmas tree. You need my truck. Get a coat.”

Liam huffed but pushed past Theo and pulled his winter coat from its hanger in the closet. He sat at the bottom of the steps, shoulder to shoulder with Theo, who was lacing up his boots, and dragged his sneakers towards him, noticing the heavy dose of side-eye coming from Theo’s direction.

“What?” he demanded.

“You’re not wearing boots?” Theo asked.

“No,” Liam told him, “You know it’s not actually snowing, right?” He watched Theo pull a hat and a pair of gloves out of his pocket before grabbing his keys off of the row of keys on hooks by the door.

“That doesn’t mean it won’t,” he said, waiting impatiently at the front door for Liam to join him before pulling it open. “Or that it’s not freezing cold out already.”

They walked down the long driveway to where Theo’s truck was parked off to the side, behind the empty space that Mason’s car normally occupied. Liam could already feel the cold wind biting at his ears and cheeks, but he ignored it. Theo was being stupid. It wasn’t going to snow, and anyways, how long could it possibly take to pick out a Christmas tree?

 

Liam could admit when he had been wrong. They had been wandering around the Christmas tree farm for almost half an hour now, and not only did his face feel like it was about to fall off, but his feet somehow felt _wet_ , and he was pretty sure his fingers were turning blue.

“What about this one?” Liam asked, pointing at the nearest tree, hoping that it might somehow pass Theo’s apparently ridiculously high standards.

“No,” Theo said simply, sounding bored. It frustrated Liam to no end. How was he supposed to help Theo pick out a tree if he had no idea what Theo was even looking for?

He groaned, maybe too audibly, and kept walking. Suddenly something was being flung in front of his face. He paused, blinking at the dark blue glove in Theo’s bare hand.

“Take it,” Theo insisted, “You’re cold. I told you you’d be cold.”

“You didn’t tell me we were going to be out here for hours,” Liam shot back, fully aware that he was complaining. “And what about my other hand?”

Theo waited for him to finish putting on the glove and then took Liam’s bare hand with his own, pulling them both into the pocket of his coat. Liam was too stunned to say anything, so he followed Theo in silence, trying not to think about how much warmer the hand in Theo’s was than the one on the glove. He glanced sideways at Theo. If he saw the blush high on Theo’s cheekbones, he said nothing. Perhaps because he knew that if he did, then Theo would comment on the color in his cheeks too.


	2. December Third

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam and Theo decorate a Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dates will skip around a little, so don't be confused if the dates in the chapter titles don't match up with the chapter numbers!
> 
> Enjoy!

“It’s crooked,” Malia told them from her spot on the couch.

“You could always help, you know,” Liam grunted, already unscrewing the keys at the tree’s base.

“How’s this?” Theo asked from above him.

“A little to the left,” Kira said helpfully.

“A little less to the left,” Malia added after a minute.

Theo swore, and the tree swayed.

“Don’t you dare drop that on me,” Liam warned him.

“You’d be fine,” Theo replied dismissively, “How’s this?”

“More to the – “

“It’s perfect!” Kira interrupted Malia.

Liam screwed the tree into place and then crawled out from underneath it as Theo stepped back to admire their work.

“It’s up,” he offered, looking at the tall, fat evergreen standing in the corner of the living room.

“That’s what he said,” Malia interjected helpfully.

“Where are last year’s decorations?” Liam asked, deciding to ignore her.

“In the attic,” she shrugged.

“You want to help us bring them down?” he pressed.

“Nope,” she said, settling in and turning on the TV, now that her entertainment seemed to be put on hold.

“I’m gonna make hot chocolate,” Kira said, and scurried off into the kitchen.

Liam and Theo looked at each other.

 

It took almost an hour to find and bring down all of the Christmas decorations. Theo had pulled off his hoodie and now was digging through one of the boxes in sweatpants and a t-shirt that did nothing but accentuate his arm muscles.

Liam was sweating in his long-sleeved shirt, but he would have to go upstairs to get a short-sleeved one to change into and honestly, that was just far too much effort.

“Are you going to help with this or what?” Theo demanded as Liam collapsed onto the floor in front of the roaring fire.

“No,” Liam admitted, turning his head to watch as Theo hefted a bell-shaped ornament on a teal string like he was about to launch it at Liam.

“I wouldn’t,” Malia said boredly, “Lydia bought all of the ornaments. Pretty sure she said that box was from Tiffany’s.”

Theo paused and then placed the ornament gingerly back in the box.

Liam groaned, as if anyone was actually making him do anything, and rolled away from the fire place, pushing himself to his feet and joining Theo at the box of ornaments. He plucked a stuffed snowman dangling from a string out of the box and hung it decisively off of one of the branches. They had to start somewhere.

By the time the rest of the pack had wandered in, Liam and Theo had finished hanging everything except for the delicate-looking star that went at the top. Lydia had come in towards the end and was now rearranging all of the ornaments to the point where Liam wasn’t sure why they had even bothered.

“Does this mean we’re done?” Liam asked after he and Theo had just been relaxing by the fire for a while.

“No,” Lydia rolled her eyes as she stepped back from the tree to examine her work, “We still have the star.”

“You can’t do it?” Theo asked, sounding as done as Liam felt.

“Do I look seven feet tall to you?” she asked dryly, crossing to the fireplace to retrieve her glass of wine from the mantle.

“Neither are either of us,” Liam pointed out.

“Then sit on each other’s shoulders,” she huffed, “I don’t care. My work here is done. I’m going to find someone tall to hang up the mistletoe for me.”

Liam stared after her, and then looked towards Theo, planning on commiserating, but saw him standing up instead.

“Well?” he demanded, “Get the star and get over here before I change my mind about letting you be on top!”

“Annnd that’s what he said!” Malia called as she walked past the doorway.

Liam glared after her, but crossed to Theo, who crouched a little when Liam climbed onto the couch behind him.

“You seriously think you can lift me?” he asked, skeptically.

“Chimera powers?” Theo reminded Liam.

Liam scowled and swung a leg over Theo’s shoulder, pausing as it began to dawn on him just how bad of an idea this was.

“Let’s go, Dunbar, I’m not going to crouch like this all day,” Theo pressed, and Liam threw caution to the wind, fully seating himself on Theo’s shoulders. His free hand clutched at Theo’s perfect hair for lack of anything else to grab hold of as Theo rose to full height.

A hand came up and gently disentangled Liam’s fingers, but not letting go, giving Liam a bit more stability as Theo moved toward the tree.

“Can you reach?” Theo asked from below him.

Liam stretched the star out towards the tree. Not quite. “Go closer.”

Theo shuffled forwards. Again, just a little too far. “Closer.”

“Liam, I’m about to be eating the damn tree, just reach a little further, I’m not going to let you fall,” Theo told him irritably.

“Fine,” Liam huffed, reaching forwards, Theo’s hand letting go of his own, both arms coming to wrap around his shins, holding him steady. He reached farther, almost to the point of total instability, before the star finally caught securely onto the top of the tree.

“Okay, it’s on,” Liam said, tapping Theo’s head.

“Thank god. You weigh a ton,” Theo told him, moving away from the tree so that Liam could dismount onto the couch and then make his way back to the floor. They looked up at the tree. “Huh,” Theo said, sounding vaguely surprised, “Not bad.”

Liam looked from the tree with all of its shiny ornaments and twinkling lights, to the shadows and light dancing on Theo’s face, back to the tree. “No,” he agreed, “Not at all.”

“Hey!” Scott poked his head into the room. “Tree looks good! Dinner’s almost ready – watch the doorway, though, Lydia went a little overboard with the mistletoe this year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Foreshadowing? ;)


	3. December Sixth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam shovels the driveway. Theo "helps".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is taking so long to update. I had to prepare for, take, and then recover from a 14+ hour plane ride...not that that's an excuse. Hopefully at least some of you are still in the mood for Christmas/Winter Thiam.
> 
> Enjoy!

Liam was going stir crazy. It had been snowing for the better part of two days now, and the whole pack had been stuck inside. For the most part, they were all working from their rooms, finding it too distracting to try and get any work done in the common areas, but some of them, Liam, Mason, and Corey included, were still on winter break and therefore had no work to occupy them. They played a lot of video games and watched movies and then moved onto board games and cards. It wasn’t until Mason and Corey had finally given in to disappearing to one of their rooms that Scott appeared downstairs, an empty mug in hand.

“Hey, I hate to ask you to do more work during your break, but do you think you would mind shoveling?” he asked, “I think it’s mostly done snowing.”

It was out of sheer boredom that Liam put up practically no fuss. He pulled on what felt like at least a hundred layers of clothes and his heavy snow boots, already sweating in the five seconds it took to walk from the closet to the front door. For a split second, the icy cold air was a relief before the true frigidity set in. Liam hauled the door closed behind him and clomped down the snowy front steps onto what he knew only from memory was the driveway. The snow was almost up to his knees, and spread evenly as far as he could see. The cars looked like giant marshmallows lined up along the driveway. Liam opened the door to the garage, fighting through the boxes stacked precariously next to Roscoe, then extracting the shovel from in front of the speedy black sportscar that Liam had absolutely zero hope of ever driving. He carried it past the small space that had been left for Scott’s motorcycle and back out into the wintery day, only to pause, blinking at a bundled up figure, already brushing the snow off of one of the cars.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, wishing that he had the ability to startle Theo, who barely even glanced over in recognition.

“Brushing off the cars, what does it look like I’m doing?” he replied in his usual bored tone.

“Getting in the way of my shoveling,” Liam shot, digging his shovel into the snow more or less at random.

He watched Theo shrug out of the corner of his eye as he began to clear the tiniest spot in what was suddenly a very long driveway.

“Shovel somewhere else, then,” he suggested.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” Liam spat back, and continued to shovel around Theo as he brushed the piled up snow from the car onto the driveway.

They worked more or less in silence around one and a half cars before everything fell apart. Liam was minding his own business, brushing shoveling the snow around the car on the side that Theo had already brushed off, when what seemed like half the snow from the roof of the car fell, half on him, half onto the freshly shoveled driveway. Liam fumed, but did the only thing that he cold think to do in retaliation, heaping snow onto his shovel and then launching it over the car at Theo. The resulting laughter only served to set his jaw further.

“Missed!”

Liam leapt over the hood of Kira’s car with his shovel in hand, scooped up a shovelful of snow, and launched it into Theo’s smug face. He came away sputtering, wrenching the shovel out of Liam’s hands and tossing it aside before grabbing a handful of snow off of the car, packing it into a snowball impossibly quickly, and sending it flying into Liam’s face.

“That’s it!” Liam growled, tackling Theo back into the snow, Theo fighting back immediately.

It should probably have been more embarrassing, knowing that any of the rest of the pack could be watching from the bright windows of the house, but if Liam was honest with himself, this was very far from the first time he and Theo had ended up wrestling in the front yard it was practically habit by now.

“I give!” Liam mumbled through the snow nearly ten minutes later, his face beginning to feel like it would freeze off, Theo sitting on his back, still actively shoving his face into the ground.

“Yeah, you do,” Theo said smugly, releasing his grip on Liam and rolling off of him.

Liam sat up and pushed him backwards. “I’m going inside to make sure my face doesn’t freeze off. You can do the rest of the driveway yourself, jackass.” He was too angry as he walked back inside to remember that Theo hadn’t even been asked to shovel the driveway in the first place.

“What are you doing?” Lydia asked when he came into the kitchen, filling a giant mug with coffee.

“Making sure I don’t have frost bite,” Liam pouted.

Lydia rolled her eyes but poured the rest of the pot into another mug and pushed it towards him.

“Theo?” she asked.

“Who else?” Liam mumbled into the steam of the mug, already feeling the numbness start to leave his face.

Strangely, Liam didn’t see Theo again until just after the sun had gone down a few hours later. Scott was cooking dinner and Liam was setting the table. He didn’t see so much as hear Theo come in through the front door and begin to shed snowy layers.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Scott told him.

“I’m going to take a quick shower first,” Theo’s voice replied, “But I’ll be right down. Don’t wait for me.”

Liam looked at Scott as Theo’s footsteps disappeared upstairs. “Was he out there the whole time?”

“I guess so,” Scott shrugged, leaning towards the window to look outside. “Looks like he finished shoveling the driveway.”

Liam did not feel guilty. And he definitely did _not_ blush.


	4. December Eighth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, but hopefully this is worth it. Things are starting to happen ;)
> 
> Enjoy!

Really, it was beyond Liam why he was getting stuck with every single Christmas chore. Sure, he was on his winter break, which, in college, meant that he was completely free. But surely some of these things could be saved for someone with better handwriting. Liam held his tongue between his teeth, painstakingly forming as perfect letters as he could make in black, black ink that took fucking forever to dry on the glossy back of the card.

“What are you doing?” The voice was so close to Liam’s ear and so sudden that he jumped nearly a mile, hand slipping, creating a bold black line straight across the center of the page.

“Wow, you’re a really shitty werewolf,” Theo said, pulling the chair next to Liam our from under his propped feet.

Liam glared. “Yeah, well you’re a shitty person. I only have five extras.”

“Better not mess up any more of them, then,” Theo smirked, pulling one of the completed ones toward him. “Is this picture from Thanksgiving?”

“Yeah apparently Scott didn’t think he could get everyone to pose for a big group photo, so we just have this one instead.” Liam turned the ruined card over in his hands and looked at the smiling faces of his pack members seated around their dining room table. Theo was actually smiling for once, for real, still laughing at a joke Corey had told right before Melissa had taken the picture. Liam, himself was at the other side of the table, an arm slung over Mason’s shoulders, looking as content as he could remember himself feeling. Scott sat in the middle, looking happy, if slightly sheepish, and maybe a little like Jesus at the supper without the air of impending doom.

 “He’s probably right,” Theo acknowledged, flipping over the card and picking up one of the spare pens that Lydia had flung at him on her way out the door.

Liam watched curiously as he scanned over the note that Scott had left on top of the stack of cards, sampling the message that he wanted on the pack’s Christmas cards. Theo didn’t say anything else as he began to copy the note onto the card in surprisingly neat handwriting.

“What are you doing?” Liam wondered.

“Helping you with the cards, what does it look like?” Theo said shortly, shaking his card out to dry the ink and then tossing it onto the pile of finished ones.

“Why?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking. He knew he probably shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth, but it made no sense that Theo would _want_ to help him. Ever.

“You shouldn’t do Christmas things alone,” he said after a minute. He didn’t look up from the card that he was working on.

Liam looked down at his own messy handwriting and started writing again. He thought about Theo helping him pick out the tree and then decorate it. Theo helping him shovel the driveway. It had been kind of fun, actually. It had felt somehow less like a chore and more like a part of the season to have someone there with him. Liam put his pen down only a sentence or two later.

“Wait,” he said, causing Theo to glance up again. “Are you trying to give me Christmas cheer?”

Theo shrugged, shaking out his card. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

“What do _you_ want to call it?” he wondered.

“I like you, Liam,” he said casually, “I thought you knew that.”

It was said almost like a taunt. Like Theo wanted to goad Liam into doing something out of pure spite, but there was a heaviness to it too, that left Liam wondering what Theo had meant, even if, in the back of his mind, there was a part of him that knew exactly.

 

Liam had expected to forget about what Theo had said, or at least not be bothered by it, but clearly that wasn’t about to be the case. He was snuggled up into his nest of pillows and blankets on the floor, feet sticking out towards the warm fire from under his blanket, toes wiggling occasionally to feel the heat on his thick socks. His heavy eyes were trained on the TV screen, but halfway through a marathon of all of the Santa Clause movies, he had lost pretty much all focus. Most of the rest of the pack was either gathered on the giant sectional or sprawled on the ground, but Liam seemed to be hyper aware of Theo sitting almost a foot away from him. His head nearly slipped from his palm as he dipped in and out of consciousness. Okay, maybe not that aware. There was a small snort of laughter from somewhere above him and he craned his neck to see Theo’s eyes moving away from him.

“Shut up,” he said, his voice coming out embarrassingly thick with sleep.

Theo’s eyes scanned around the room and then he shifted towards Liam. And then he shifted a little more. Suddenly, he was right next to Liam and his hands were replacing Liam’s making his heavy head feel weightless for a moment before laying it down on top of an incredibly soft but incredibly firm thigh. Theo’s scent mixed with the familiar scent of the pack’s laundry detergent and Liam barely had enough energy to mutter something about the fleece gingerbread man pajama pants being stupid before drifting off, the realization that Theo maybe did _like_ him soothing him into unconsciousness rather than jarring him awake.


End file.
